Sage Hill's $7.5 million center will bring science to life

Erika Lynn-Green, a junior at Sage Hill School, was "never a science person" until she took an AP Biology course in the summer.

Now, she is completely hooked and may even follow in the footsteps of her mother, who is a doctor, Lynn-Green said.

It is that kind of passion for the study of the sciences that staff members at Newport Coast's elite private high school hope to kindle in their students.

Their plan will get a boost with a new $7.5 million science center, said Gordon McNeill, head of school at Sage Hill. On a recent morning he unveiled a sign to students and teachers that featured a rendering of the science center, which he expects will become a part of the school's sprawling 30-acre campus in about a year and a half.

"There is a crisis in science education nationwide and we hear about it all the time," McNeill said. "Sage Hill is going to do it differently and you guys are going to be a part of it."

McNeill said the science center has been in the works for nearly five years since he took over the reins of administration for the 466-student private high school. The new building will be a state-of-the-art facility with dedicated laboratory space for each area of science.

"The building will have glass walls that open up and expand when we want to bring in large groups of students," he said. "It will also have outdoor and indoor learning spaces."

Sharing the facility with inner city schools and having its students work with elementary school children is something that is part of the school's DNA, McNeill said.

"We have our ninth-graders teaching third- and fourth-graders from Santa Ana," he said. "They teach them organic gardening and do science experiments with them. These children are from schools that do not have the funding to teach science at that level. For them, this is where science comes to life."

The new facility will help Sage Hill continue these programs in addition to helping its own students progress, he said.

The school has already raised about half the funds needed for the center's construction, McNeill said. They plan to raise about $1.25 million between now and June so they can break ground. He expects the 16,000-square-foot, one-story science center to be built by the fall of 2014.

The new center will be more conducive to a discussion format as opposed to lecture-type classes, said Todd Haney, head of the school's science department.

"It will be a better environment for both discussion and collaboration," he said.

Science teacher Tyler Zarubin said high school is the time when most students make important decisions about their lives.

"As teachers, we have the opportunity to inspire, encourage and challenge our students," he said. "The center increases the tools I have as a teacher. It gives me more creative freedom."

Mihir Worah, managing director of Newport Beach-based Pimco, is on the science center's advisory board and his son attends Sage Hill. Worah, a particle physicist who was able to successfully transition into a career in finance, says science education paves the way for many careers.

"Personally, I found that many of the math and physics principles I learned had a direct application to finance," he said.

Worah said in the Bay Area, where he previously lived, the interest in science was palpable on school campuses.

"There's just something in the air, a lot of students aspire to be scientists in the Bay Area," he said. "We need to bring that spirit to Orange County and this science center will help accomplish that."